Ask HN: I work for AWS. How do I encourage change for Amazon warehouse workers?
Ideally without getting fired.
I've voiced some of my concerns to management but that hasn't gone anywhere. I know I'm not alone amongst my coworkers in feeling concerned for Fulfillment Center (FC, Amazon's term for their retail warehouses) employees. How can we in AWS organize and campaign for better working conditions for our FC teammates?
This is of course inspired by Tim Bray's recent departure from Amazon (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23065782). I'm a software engineer (surprise surprise) if it matters.
226 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 99.0 ms ] threadIf you want to help, build a one page site giving the FC people all the information they need to get the ball rolling at their levels.
I think at your level, the only thing that will catch attention is a principled stand i.e. resigning and in your exit interviews make it clear why you are resigning. Tim was the start, if tons of colleagues follow him out the door, it will be noticed, which means you need to find like minded people and all resign together.
This is also known as organizing.
Organizing and then mass resigning has got to be the least efficient use of the potential organizing represents.
Organize and join a union that's already working with FC. This gives you a chance to hear, directly, what outcomes they desire, and advocate for it.
Software workers are notoriously reluctant to organize. They figure "hey, I'm well paid already, what is organizing going to get me?"
Let this situation serve as an answer to that question. Good luck.
I do not find those attractive prospects.
I've yet to personally encounter a clear-eyed would-be SWE-union-organizer who is interested in sticking to nuts and bolts. "What's in it for me?" isn't a selfish question to be brushed off, it's the only question that matters.
For Tim Bray, and our anonymous AWS poster, "What's in it for us?" is, clearly, also a salient question.
It's true that ultimately "What's in it for me" is the only question which really moves the needle. Here, the answer is "an opportunity to raise issues with management and not get brushed off".
Today the issue is the treatment of FC workers. There's no way that this is the last issue that will ever arise.
Union-to-union solidarity might perhaps be a different question - organizations reason differently than individuals. Of course, this requires that both organizations already exist.
So, again, what's in it for me? The chance to "raise issues" doesn't sound like something I would want to stick my neck out for. The chance to have someone lecture me about the importance of solidarity doesn't sound appealing... for me.
Strikes are a historical way of doing it. It forces them to move, but only after exhausting all other possibilities. Study the early history of the creation of unions in the US. You might be surprised to discover it was extremely violent, typically coming from the corporations. This violence typically occurred after the union was successfully formed and in operation.
The first trick with unionizing a non union company, because the US political parties have turned their back on them for the last 50 or so years, is undetected coordination. Companies will discover union leaders and remove them from the equation. Some companies will sense a union forming and close the entire operation and move it to a new location with new employees. They will also add plants posing as workers but really reporting to management. Also, the threat of moving the factory overseas is an overpowering factor for the company.
The end goal is strike, or at least show you have the ability to strike. That is the move that forces the company to at least think about moving where you want them to. To strike, you need to coordinate and early on, it needs to be undetected.
Could someone from outside the organization take the lead?
Probably not for fulfillment and distribution
Fortunately, FC centers are required by their function to be located near consumers so Amazon has extremely limited flexibility here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_Worl...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_Workers_Coalition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Workers_of_Amer...
You are part of an elite, high-income managerial class that is insulated from pesky things like "working conditions". Sending an email to your manager or liking a post on Facebook is meaningless.
If you're sincere you'll actually risk something to stand for your principles. Demand that conditions meaningfully change or find employment at a place that doesn't make the world a worse place to live.
Well that’s not really possible. By definition “things that take a moralistic stand against existing company practices” is equivalent to “fireable violation of policy” - it’s Moral Mazes 101.
To be in good standing with a large bureaucratic employer is to either explicitly agree or tacitly decline to disagree with the company’s existing practices. Any deviation is defined as problematic behavior.
The only thing that will cause change is if Amazon is legally required to change or else loses profits unless it changes - and in the latter case that may not be enough because people already very rich may not value that lost profit as highly as they value authoritarian control, sociopathic delight in debasing other people, or just digging their heels in against external forces mandating change.
It’s also unlikely that tech workers quitting will do much. Amazon can restaff in a zillion different ways and at this point could hire more mediocre talent and function in more of a maintenance mode and continue to be successful for a long time.
Eh, not sure about that. IBM went downhill fairly quickly once they stopped getting the cream of the crop. Oracle was able to stave off problems for a while, but only because of the lock-in issue. Amazon doesn't have the benefit of lock-in (with the exception of some parts of AWS).
Is there somewhere these bad conditions are documented?
I think such clear, public documentation would go a long way to changing conditions.
https://nypost.com/2019/07/13/inside-the-hellish-workday-of-...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-wo...
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/amazo...
https://time.com/5629233/amazon-warehouse-employee-treatment...
There are internal mailing-lists for employees who care about this, as well as environmental issues. The lists also have plenty of people who are only there to sneer and astroturf; being on the list is unlikely to get you into trouble.
A much less useful but worthwhile activity is participating in Amazon shareholder meetings and voting on resolutions, and perhaps more importantly, encouraging your colleagues to do the same.
Along with this, know your rights:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_concerted_activity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Law_for_the_Rank_and_Fil...
https://www.reddit.com/r/IWW/comments/f5uw7d/concerted_activ...
Weren’t they going after people who posted on such lists, as well as closing the lists down?
Perhaps start by anonymously raising awareness and rallying fellow Amazon employees via public blogs, social etc.
Plus, in person organizing is a lot trickier during a pandemic!
[0] https://deardesignstudent.com/ethics-cant-be-a-side-hustle-b...
When you're refusing to work for an unethical company, you're playing a very different game than when you get involved in political activism. You need a very high percentage (>10% of an industry?) of people to commit to refusing to work for an unethical company for it to make a difference. On the other hand, a very small number of people engaging in political activism can change the consciousness of the entire country very quickly. Think of the way that a few people hanging out in Zuccotti Park changed the way that we talk about wealth in America. Nobody knew what the "99%" was before that.
Until AWS realizes their refusal to take action will erode both their bottom line and their talent pool, nothing will change.
change needs leaders!
Fulfillment Tech org just threw away their OP2 (Operational plan) for the year and have a huge number of new priorities to help FC associates in light of the covid situation.
I really respect Tim Bray and the step he's taken. But unless you're willing to take that kind of step, no one in the upper echelon will give a care what you do or say. And even then, probably only if you're an L8 or higher.
https://janemcalevey.com/speaking-engagement/organizing-for-...
https://janemcalevey.com
If you find recordings, or future events, please share.
My intro to McAlevey was this interview:
A master class in organizing https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2020/3/17/21182149/jane-mcaleve...
I did the Camp Wellstone general purpose organizer training ages ago. It was superior. https://www.wellstone.org
--
Meta:
The book The Logic of Collective Action transformed my thinking about unions, orgs, work, etc.
TL;DR: What to do about defectors, a la game theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action
Wish I'd read this book ages ago.
I’d recommend it to all Amazon employees.
Worst case scenario is they've decided it's cheaper to risk an outbreak in their fulfillment centers and just fire the sick employees and hire replacements from among the ~30million newly jobless, even accounting for the expense of resulting lawsuits. If that's the case, not much you can do besides quit or put together a class action lawsuit (or join one of the existing ones).
But if that's not the case, then maybe you'll learn something useful from them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_continuity_planning
A union is what you want here, that can credibly threaten real pain. Depending on how that needs to be communicated, after the people with the purse strings take you seriously, then you sit down to talk.
That being said, better working conditions is relative, I'm pretty sure amazon warehouse working condition is better than working in factory in china.
"I am conflicted about recent Amazon events and the departure of a high level executive.
However I do not have the same convictions and fortitude as Tim Bray. How can I rationalize staying at Amazon without feeling bad about my decision?
I really like the : people I work with/pay/perks/other."
A bit harsh possibly.
His empathy is reflected in the difficulty of the decision and his situation is likely different than Tim's. Lets not put people down because they are looking for options before jumping.
To aid this you can help promote support for unionizing and other related things. But that's fairly secondary. I think using your position as an employee to call out Amazon's abuses can be a good way to direct media attention but without worker power, attention on its own doesn't actually do anything. But Amazon firing its employees has given them a lot of bad press. If it happens to you it might be a good thing politically. That does suck though, if you can't afford it be careful.
Related to all of these topics I want to plug https://www.taxamazon.net/about, which doesn't solve the issue of warehouse conditions but does help address one other externality of Amazon's relentless drive for profits at the expense of all other issues. Raising consciousness around their tax-dodging helps people realize their worker relations are terrible and vice versa, and passing this ballot initiative will do a lot of good on its own.
Edit: do get plugged in to Tech Workers’ Coalition if you aren’t. I just wanted to be sober about the challenges and opposition warehouse workers face and the necessary strategy for victory.
The way that unions fought capital in the early 20th was they went on strike and remained on strike until capital conceded to demands or they were shutdown by "detective agencies" ie strike breakers. Staying on strike cost money - food, rent for strikers. National unions like the wobblies and AFL-CIO would funnel national dues to locals. Are there even really national unions anymore? Personally I would donate money to Amazon workers striking if there were a call for it even though I wouldn't be in their hypothetical union.
Edit: lol downvotes from shareholders triggered by the word "strike"
There are useful distinctions even between this though. What Piketty refers to as the "patrimonial middle class" has significant assets during and at the end of their life, but still needs to sell their labor to pay their bills. This distinction aligns more closely with the traditional lower/upper/middle arrangement (they'd be upper-middle class). This article[1] (unfortunately paywalled if you don't have an Economist subscription) covers it pretty well, but it's pretty well-trod ground at this point: there's a substantial chunk of the population that isn't rentier/leisure class, but often aligns with them politically, and your proposal's elision of this group means it's missing an important dynamic in class politics.
[1] https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2017/06/29/why-the-...
If the rentier/laborer divide is the _only_ important distinction, why is it so relatively easy for this group to skip across the line?
He's selling one thing, but delivering another. His first public appearance as president elect was to walk into a $$$ steak restaurant in Manhattan where he walked around letting every wealthy person in there know he was "going to lower your taxes." A couple weeks after running basically anti-semitic ads attacking the global elite and wealthy bankers and George Soros and what not.
That's not really relevant in the context of Amazon's _warehouse_ workers unionizing, but I think it's an interesting constraint for us as software developers.
Well indeed I am suggesting a warehouse worker that we as software engineers support financially
> Mackay Radio has been called "the worst contribution that the U.S. Supreme Court has made to the current shape of labor law in this country."
> Nearly every criticism of Mackay Radio is aimed at the Court's "duplicitous distinction" between firing and permanently replacing striking workers.
Interesting, too, that the decision apparently contracts the laws it was interpreting. This is a grim section to read[0]. Reading this, it seems like the case was approached with a predetermined result in mind, and apparently 2 of the justices declined to participate.
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Mackay_Radio_%26_Tel...
There’s a big labour dispute going on in my city right now. 700-odd refinery workers are locked out (the employees announced a strike, the refinery locked them out to prevent unpredictable disruption), and the refinery is running on a skeleton crew of replacement workers. Because of blockades put up by the picketers, the refinery has chartered a fleet of helicopters for emergency transport. Additionally, the replacement workers are living in a camp on-site. Overall, the refinery was running at about 80% capacity, and even when factoring in the additional overhead from the camp and helicopters, their profit margins apparently went up due to the reduced labour costs of not having to pay the entire 700-person staff.
Then the demand for refined petroleum products dropped dramatically due to COVID. I haven’t heard much about what’s going on now profit-wise, but they have dropped production significantly. We’re now into month 5 of the lockout, and it’s the workers that are demanding to go back to work, not the refinery bending over backwards to try to get them back.
All in all, I guess what I’m getting at is... don’t assume you’re not replaceable just because you built the engine that makes money for your company. Any company worth its salt has an established Business Continuity Plan that addresses what to do in a whole number of disasters, and labour disruptions are in those plans.
I don't think this is true. With enough bad press, it starts to make a difference both on the consumer side and the hiring side. I've turned down Amazon recruiters solely based on ethics before, and I haven't held an Amazon Prime membership in years. And I know others who avoid using Amazon unless they really have no other option.
I agree with this! However, it would be very nice if Amazon engineers were organized as well. I know CWA has an ongoing effort to organize tech workers. They're a pretty good union--still what I'd call a "business union," but one of the better ones that understands their power comes from being organized enough to shove the boss around a little.
https://www.code-cwa.org/
This is why labor struggles are so difficult. The most powerful movers are the most exploited and dispossessed people, but they don't want to risk what little they have. They are the most powerful because they control the actual production of the company, without them management is helpless. At least in America, I don't want to make a more general claim as people are willing to strike over much less in other countries due to the strength of the labor movement, it's really only when people have nothing left to lose do they fight. We can talk to people in that position, we can discuss how we can support them, but ultimately it's their decision whether to fight or not.
EDIT: I'd say my advice to the OP is the most important thing you can do is to network labor organizers (meaning anyone willing to fight for each other, not just with professional unions) between SWEs and FC workers. You should talk regularly and plan how to achieve a series of goals bearing in mind that the FC workers should be in the driver's seat on most decisions. Your goal is to build worker solidarity and worker power independent of management.
I would setup a site (behind registration privacy), registered with a foreign/eu registrar, and probably hosted in the EU.
Get a cheap low end/burner phone for any text/organizing. Encourage others to work from non-primary devices as much as possible. This is to minimize backlash.
Being an organizer is the single biggest risk there is here. Keeping your identity secret and working to bring people across the organization together will expose you otherwise. At this point, AWS has the resources of many governments and will be working to expose you.
This is just my $.02, but I agree... the boots on the ground have to protest for themselves. Keep the discussion on point to the actual work conditions, and less about ideology, you will lose support if you don't keep the focus and control the narrative.
It seems like it should be possible, if FC workers are involved, for SWEs that have the means to go without pay for a while, and greater financial leverage to strike on behalf of FC workers who are more vulnerable, and the FC workers determine the terms. Not that organizing something like that would be easy.
By that logic, then technical folks, particularly devops people, are in a very strong role to make change. AWS is a very significant portion of Amazon's profits, and it will crumble to the ground if they mass strike just as much as Amazon's retail sector will crumble if the FC workers mass strike.
You think AWS can maintain 3+ 9s with 50%+ of their operations people striking? Look at what simply shifting to remote work has done to Github uptime over the past month: 99.6% after months of 3+ 9s. Their uptime would likely stop dropping quickly, particularly if strikes extended into weeks.
So I wouldn't just discard it as an excuse to not do anything. I'm not super well versed in the details, but I think the main point was, that only self-emancipation really frees one from foreign rule and oppression.
That does not mean, that you can't do anything, and they have do everything themselves. But you have to be aware that your view of what is best for them, might differ from their view of what is best. While I agree that a tech worker strike and such is more impactful, I would consider not just asking the typical people that frequent hacker news how to help warehouse workers, but also, you know, warehouse workers.
Edit: for another example, I might be perfectly willing to put my job on the line for such a cause. But with my actions do I endanger someone else's job who can not afford losing it? If so I should not just storm ahead without coordination.
Discussion like this, just reminded me that the "left" worldwide has somehow managed to loose huge swaths or the entire support of the working class in the last decades and are now often considered ivory tower elitists.
I think it is good to remind oneself, that if you want to help, you should sit down and listen to the people you want to help, and make sure that your action can actually have tangible impact and are not just to make yourself feel better.
I know it sounds cynical but the only way you can get managerial attention is if it hurts workers productivity (like the Google walkout two years ago) or if you can hurt their bottom line. If you go at it alone you'll barely get the right kind of awareness. See what happened to James Damore when he went against the machine solo. Irrespective of your views on his stance his exit gives a flavour of how things could go.
What you could do anonymously is help workers organise their protests, help them circumvent AMZN s in-built policies that prevent this.
I want you to succeed but at the same time needlessly falling on your sword helps noone.
Unless you are essentially famous though, I’m not sure that as a regular Amazon employee you carry much more weight than someone campaigning directly in FC, or someone external campaigning for better worker relations and employee rights.
In fact, because of who you work for, it’s going to be much harder and messier than most for you to objectively campaign on this issue. Not only could you get fired, you could lose any chance of a good reference and generate quite a lot of ill will with folk you’ll encounter in your career later on.
In all honesty you might find it better to put your energy into another issue. You can have just as much impact without compromising your current working relationship, and without being accused of double standards: biting the hand that feeds you.
Could create an amazon-whistleblower subreddit, where people can post and shame managers on reddit, though might break the doxxing rules of reddit. So maybe create your own platform and create subs for different groups w/in amazon.
I'd do it all anonymously or get someone else to do it for you in their name who has no connections to you...
I'm actually wanting to create a platform like this...if I had time/money to do so. Think something like talkyard closer to reddit though w/ nested sub reddits... so you could have like a reddit for Farm Animals and under it Farm Animals > Goats, Farm Animals > Cows, and Farm Animals would show all posts from Farm Animals, Goats, and Cows..and even Goats > Baby Goats.
The goal is to use it for managing unions actually, allowing thought on issues of governance, question/answers, suggestions, and other 'types' of content blocks but I'm one dev, and not the best on frontend tech, though I'm full-stack/vue I always get caught up w/ the minute details.
Isn't it ironic that the internet, which should've been a boon to labor organization, has been quite the opposite.
How will this help at all?